A pay raise for some Allegheny County workers will boost personnel expenditures by roughly $9.9 million over the next three years, according to calculations from the county manager and budget offices.
The cost estimate, which has not been previously reported, is the price of a commitment made on County Executive Sara Innamorato’s first full day in office. But it’s unlikely to end the debate about the fiscal impact of the move.
Innamorato announced the pay increase for non-union county employees, effective immediately. Full-time workers were bumped up to $18 an hour, with wages increasing annually to at least $22 an hour by 2027. Part-time workers were promised $15 an hour — a $3 an hour increase from the former base pay.
Innamorato spokesperson Abigail Gardner said the immediate cost of the raises had already been factored into the county’s 2024 budget, which allocated a total of nearly $361.7 million for salaried workers and $4.4 million for seasonal and part-time employees. Personnel are routinely the county’s single largest expense in a spending plan that surpasses $1 billion annually. When other wage increases the county anticipates are factored in, full-time and part-time personnel costs will grow by $24.2 million this year.
Calculations from the county manager and budget offices found that the county will spend an additional $1.9 million to cover the cost of the raises for affected employees in 2025, when the minimum wage for full-time workers will increase to $20 an hour. The next year, when rates increase to $21 an hour, the county will add $3.2 million to the budget. And in 2027, when full-time workers will receive a minimum of $22 an hour, the county will spend another $4.6 million on the raises.
Gardner said the figures include the cost of fringe benefits, like payroll taxes and pensions, and take into account state reimbursements the county receives to pay some employees.
“We left some flexibility in the wage increase timeline so we can be fiscally responsible and responsive to emerging economic realities. But it was important to signal the intention of continuing to invest in our county workers,” Gardner said in an email to WESA.
Those calculations are far less expensive than estimates given for a similar bill proposed by County Council last year.
Former County Executive Rich Fitzgerald estimated that council’s bill (which would have topped out at $20 an hour by 2026) would cost at least $30 million a year, and “require the largest tax increase in the history of this government.”
Other estimates made at the time put the cost of council’s bill closer to $10 million, including health care, pension, Medicare and payroll tax increases.
County Council Republican Sam DeMarco, a skeptic of the raises, said Fitzgerald’s $30 million price tag factors in potential future wage increases for county workers who made slightly more than the minimum, but would seek increases to keep pace with the increase.
Innamorato seemed to anticipate that kind of impact when announcing the hike, a move she said was backed by unions because “when we come to the table and start with bargaining negotiations, we have set, on our own terms, a higher floor for them to bargain from.” She called it “a win-win for both nonunion as well as unionized employees here at the county.”
Gardner said the county manager and budget offices compiled cost estimates before Innamorato announced the raises. But at the time of the announcement, Innamorato faced criticism after she was unable to provide an estimate of how much the raise would cost when reporters asked. She said county officials would work with the budget office to understand the fiscal impact
DeMarco said Innamorato should have put the interests of taxpayers first.
“I'm sorry, but she's the county executive. Her responsibility is to the taxpayers and the people that elected her, not the unions,” he said.
The Innamorato administration maintains the cost of the raises is a miniscule portion of spending – even the $30 million figure would amount to a fraction of 1 percent of the county’s operating budget. And it said there would be a financial upside as well, with less turnover in operations. At the time of the announcement, Innamorato said that when calculating the fiscal impact of the bill, estimates should “mak[e] sure that we are also incorporating the cost savings of employee retention and increased productivity.”
Council’s efforts to raise the minimum wage were ultimately struck down by an Allegheny County Common Pleas judge who ruled that the executive — not council — has the authority to set wages and salaries.
Innamorato raised the wage on her own. Council chose not to appeal the lawsuit, so while workers got a raise, the ruling that council had no authority to give them remains intact.
Council member Bethany Hallam, who championed the bill in council, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Innamorao believes “we should do our best to pay salaries that provide a living wage while being fiscally responsible with the County’s budget,” said Gardner. She noted the county already struggled to fill some positions, including lifeguards at county pools.
“We have to offer competitive wages for part and full time work and offer more competitive benefits like increased vacation time,” she said, “or we will continue to fall further and further behind.”
